The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-09-08

TEXT: 40 COD credteu man IN fftS otcn
image, the image Of God created, He him,
l., "a.
In other words, God, who can make no mis-
take, made man and woman for a specific
work and to move in particular spheres-man
TO be regnant in his realm; woman to be domi,
nant in hers. The boundary line between
Italy and Switzerland between England and
Scotland, is not more thoroughly marked
than this distinction between the empire
masculine and the empire feminine. So en-
tirely dissimiar are the fields to which God
called them, that you can no more compare
them than you can oxygen and hydrogen,
water and grass, trees and stars. All this
talk about the superiority of one sex to the
other sex is an everlasting waste of ink and
speech. A jeweler may have scale so
delicate that he can weigh the dust of dia-
monds; but where are the scales so delicate
that he can weigh in them affection against
affection, sentiment against sentiment,
thought against thought, soul against soul,
mans world against woman's worlds
You come out with your stereotyped
remark, the man is superior to wo
on my desk the swarthy, iron-typed
thunderbolted writings of Harriet Martineau
and Elizabeth Browning and George Eliot
You come on with your stereotyped remarl
about woman's superiority to man in the item
Of affection; but | ask you where was Their,
more capacity to love than in John the
Disciple, and Robert McCheyne, the Scotch
man, and John Symmetrical the Methodist
and Henry Martin the Missionary The heart
of those men was so large that after yor
had rolled into it two hemispheres there
was room still left to marshal tn,
hosts of heaven and set up the thron,
of the eternal Jehovah. | deny to mar
,A.Il-
throne affectional. No human phraseology
will ever define the spheres while there is
an intuition by which we know when man
is in his realm, and when a women is in her
realm, and when either of them is out of it.
No bungling legislature ought to attempt te
make definition, or to say: "Ths is the line
and that is the line" My theory is that il
woman wants to vote she ought to vote
and that if man wants to embroider anG
keep house, he ought to be allowed to EN-
broider and keep house. There are masculine
women and there are effeminate men. My
theory is, that you have no right to interfere
with any ones doing anything that is right
eous. Albany and Washington might as well
decree by legislation how high a brown
thrasher should fly, or how deep trout
should plunge, as to try to seek out the
height or the depth of woman's duty The
question of capacity will settle finally the
whole question, the whole subject. When a
woman is prepared to preach, she will preach
and neither Conference nor Presbytery can
hinder her. When woman is prepared to
move in highest commercial spheres, she will
have great influence on the Exchange, and
no boards of trade can hinder her. l want
woman to understand that heart and brain
can overly any barrier that politicians may
set up, and that nothing can keep her back or
keep her down but the question of incapacty.
There are women, know, of most undesir-
able nature, who wander up and down the
country-having no homes of their own, or
forsaking their own homes--talking about
their rights; and we know very well that they
themselves are fit neither to vote nor fit to
keep house. Their mission seems to be to hui
initiate the two sexes at the thought of what
any one of us might become No one would
want to live under the laws that such women
would enact, or to have cast upon society the
children that such women would raise But
shall show you this morning that the best
rights that woman can own, she already has
in her possession; that her position in this
country at this time is not one of commisera-
ton, hut one of congratuation; that the
grandeur and power OF her realm have never
yet been appreciated; that she sits to-day on
throne so high, that all the thrones of earth
piled on top of each other would
not make for her footstool. Here is the
platform on which she stands. Away down
below it are the ballot-box and the Congress-
lonal assemblage and the Legislative hall.
Woman always has voted and always will
vote. Our great grandfathers thought they
We're by their votes putting Washington into
the presidential chair No. His mother, by
the principles she taught him, and by the
habits she inculcated, made him President 1t
was Christian mothers hand dropping the
ballot when Lord Bacon wrote, and Newton
philosophical and Alfred the Great gov
erned, and Jonathan Edwards Numbered OF
judgment to come. How many men there
have been in high political station who would
have been insufficient to stand the test
to which their moral principle was put had
it not been for wife'svoice that encouraged
them to do right, and a wife's prayer that
sounded louder than the clamor of partisan.
ship! Why, my friends the right of suffer-
age, as we men exercise it, seems to be a
feeble thing. You, a Christian man, come
up to the ballot-box and you drop your vote.
Right after you comes libertine, or sot-
the offscouring of the street-and he drops
his vote; and his vote counteracts yours But
If in the quiet of home life daughter by her
Christian demeanor, a wife by her industry,
mother by her faithfulness, casts vote in
the right direction, then nothing can resist it.,
and the influence of that vote will throb
through the eternities.
My chief anxiety then is, not that woman
have 9th II rights accorded her. but that sho
by the grace Of God, rise up to the apprecia-
ton of the glorious rights she already pos
sesses This morning | shall only have time
to speak of one grand and all-ab'orbing
right that every woman has, and that is to
make home happy. That realm no one has
ever disputed with her. Men may come home
at noon or at night, and they larry com
paratively little while; but she, all day long,
governs it, beauties it, sanctifies it. 1t Is
within her power to make it the most attrac-
tive place on earth 1t is the only calm har-
Dor in this world. You know as we'll as do,
that this outside world and the business world,
is al long scene of jostle and contention. The
man who has dollar struggles to keep it; the
man who has itnot struggles to getit. Prices
up Prices down. Losses. Gains. Misrep-
reservations. Gougings. Undertaking. Buy
| ers depreclating statesmen exaggerating.
Tenants seeking less rents landlords de-
handing more Gold fidgetty. Struggles
about Office. Men who are in trying to keep
in men out trying to get in. Slips. Tumbles.
Defalcations. Panics. Catastrophes 0
woman thank God you have a home and
that you may be queen in it. Better be there
than wear Victoria's coronet. Better be
there than carry the purse Of a Princess.
| Your abode may be humble, but you can, by
| your faith in God and your cheerfulness OF
demeanor, gild it with splendors such as an
| upholsterer's hand never yet kindled. There
are abodes in the city-humble, two stories
Tour PLAIN, unpapered rooms; undesirable
neighborhood and yet there is man
here this morning who would die on that
threshold rather than surrender it.
Why 1t is home. Whenever he thinks
of it, he sees angels of God lowering
around it. The ladders of heaven are LET
down to that house. Over the child's rough
crib there are the chantings Of angels like
those that broke over Bethlehem. tits home
These children may come up after while
and they may win high position, and they
may have an affiuent residence; but they will
not until their dying day forget that humble
roof, under which their father rested, ant
their mother sang, and their sisters played
Oh, if you would gather up all tender mem
cries, all the lights and shades of tine heart
all banqustings and reunions, all flial, fra
ternal, paternal, and conjugal affections. AM
you had only just four letters with which t,
spell out that height and depth, and lengtl
and breadth, and magnitude, and eternity o
meaning, you would, with streaming eyes
and trembling voice, and agitated hand
write it out in those four living capital
HOME
What right does woman want that
grander than to be queen in such realm
Why, the eagles of heaven cannot fly acros
that dominion. Horses, painting and wit
LII ~